"UNITED WE STAND: NOW OR NEVER!"

The Lafayette County, MO Juneteenth Celebration will be held on Friday, June 14, 2019 and June 15, 2019. The theme of the event is “United We Stand: Now or Never!” The day will include the following activities: a flag-raising ceremony, a light brunch and voter registration and voting information workshop, commemoration service for the Civil War USCT veterans who are buried at the county cemeteries, educational displays , a real-life sharing storytellers' panel and an evening program.

The evening program will start at 5:30 PM. It will include a potluck welcome dinner, music, and Mr. Ray Anthony Shepard, keynote speaker and author. As always, our event is free and family-friendly. Most of the day's activities are at the community building in the Fairground Park in Higgins ville, MO. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. June 19, 1865, union soldiers, led by General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with 2000 Federal troops to issue the order that the Civil War had ended and that all slaves were free. This was two and half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that had become official on January 1, 1863.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Author Ray Anthony Shepard was born in Sedalia, his father’s hometown. His mother was born in Marshall, where her father was enslaved until the Missouri Ordinance Abolishing Slavery in January 1865. Although Ray grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska he returned to Sedalia each summer to stay with his grandmother who lived at 305 West Johnston Street.

After serving in the US Army, Ray graduated from the University of Nebraska, taught middle school American History in Davenport, Iowa and then earned a master degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he received a Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. After graduating from Harvard he began a career in educational publishing and became the industry’s first African American Editor-in-Chief of a major publishing house.

After retiring from publishing he launched an encore career writing biographies for young adult readers about the lives of well-known and little-known African Americans who tipped the scales toward justice and equality.

Ray’s young adult biography, Now or Never! 54th Massachusetts Infantry’s War to End Slavery, is the story of two black Civil War soldiers whose battlefield dispatches documented their battle against Northern white racial arrogance as they fought Confederates’ attempt to establish an independent slave empire. It is the story of why and how black men answered Frederick Douglass’s call: “through Massachusetts we can get our hands on treason and slavery.” Their story gives readers a better understanding of how difficult it was for the country to free itself from human slavery and the economic gain of enslaved labor. Sergeant George E. Stephens and Corporal James Henry Gooding were just two of the 180,000 black Civil War soldiers who with courage and pride offered to sacrifice themselves on the altar of freedom to liberate enslaved African Americans.

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Now or Never! received starred reviews from Kirkus and the School Library Connection and was selected by Kirkus and the New York Public Library’s “Best Books for Teens 2017.” The National Teachers of Social Studies chose it as a Carter G. Woodson (the founder of Black History Month) Honor Book. For more information go to www.rayanthonyshepard.com

 

JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2019

Juneteenth Celebration on the Move! - Saturday, June 15, 2019 event will be a bus tour to historic sites. We will be visiting the Rose M. Nolen Black History Library in Sedalia, MO and the Pennytown hamlet in Saline County. We will board the bus at 8:15 am and depart promptly 9 am. Meeting location to board the bus is at the shelter house adjacent to the community building in Fairground Park, Higginsville, MO. Lunch for the day will be provided. Estimated time of return is 5 pm. Please call Arron Haynes to reserve your seat!

The Mission Statement

Lafayette County Juneteenth Foundation Mission statement is to develop and implement a one-day festival that promotes the celebration of family, celebrates African-American freedom, and cultivates mutual involvement of social service entities, and economic participation of the county-wide business community.

Lafayette County Juneteenth Foundation is a non-profit 501 C (3 organization

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For more information, or if you are seeking opportunities to volunteer, contact Arron Haynes, chairperson at 816-419-3704. Online check, out our blog at http://lafayettecountyjuneteenth.blogspot.com and our Facebook page for specifics and updates.